


A Spot of Bother

by Polly_Phemus (orphan_account)



Series: Dom down the Hall Prompts, Timestamps &tc [3]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Bad Days, M/M, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 10:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11378481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Polly_Phemus
Summary: Jared has a bad day which brings up bad memories; Jensen realizes he needs to abandon his own plans as they both work on distinguishing between their relationship as a whole and their sexual relationship.This takes place the day after "Passive-Aggressive," as near as I can tell.  I need to get a timeline going.This is partly a prompt response; a non-AO3 member with the perfectly wonderful handle of Wanking+Pedantic suggested:"* Jared coming home from a bad day - no one's fault, just tons of things going wrong at the same time - and Jensen domming him in a loving, not necessarily sexual way, just getting him to a place mentally and emotionally where he's not in control and doesn't have to think about any responsibilities."It's "inspired by" but ended up not really getting in very many of the suggested elements, but it's not the last word on this particular theme.  Also?  Wanking+Pedantic makes for an excellent conceptual OTP.





	A Spot of Bother

Jared got home from work on Friday and grumpily walked his dogs, letting them do the bare minimum: encouraging them to attend to hygiene obligations as quickly as possible and barely letting them run around. Well, letting Cardy run around for a couple of minutes. Zucchini sat by Jared on the ground, keeping watch over him. She always knew when he'd had a bad day.

Once that was done, he went up to his condo. He thought about hitting the gym, but he knew that he'd just keep stewing and getting madder and madder and, while his body would still get the benefit, his mind would be on its own treadmill. He flopped out on his couch and picked up an undemanding book and tried to forget his day.

At 6:30 he got a text from Jensen.

_Home again, jiggity jig._

So Jensen's afternoon meeting had run over, just as he'd predicted, but not by as long as he'd feared. Good for Jensen. Jared checked the traffic; Jensen should be home not too long after seven. So Jared had about a half hour to make himself human again.

It didn't work. At seven, Jared was still pissed off, still arguing in his own head and not fit for his dom's, or anyone else's, company.

At 7:20 he got another text from Jensen.

_U comin over r wat?_

Jared laughed in spite of himself. Jensen never abbreviated his texts; Jared had no idea what this shift in format meant. Impatience? Exhaustion? Misha had gotten his hands on Jensen's phone? Whatever it was, it made him more interested in leaving his condo than he might otherwise have been.

He pulled himself off the couch, finger-combed his hair and went down the hall. The door unlocked for him when he told it, "Let Jared in," the phrase he'd picked when Jensen had programmed him into his door's vocal command system.

Jensen was standing by the window, looking at the view, still wearing the suit Jared had watched him put on that morning. Jared liked that look on Jensen, normally. That morning, he'd even made several salacious comments while watching Jensen get dressed. Now, just over twelve hours later, he just didn't care. 

"Sit," Jensen commanded.

"No," Jared said. 

Jensen turned toward Jared.

"Sorry," Jensen apologized, a little curtly for Jared's taste. Jared folded his arms over his chest.

"Will you please sit down and make yourself comfortable?" Jensen tried again.

Mulishly, Jared went over to the couch facing away from the view and plunked himself down. Jensen moved to the other couch, the one at right angles to the one Jared had chosen and sat down neatly, keeping his spine straight, pure dom in every gesture.

"I see that you are not in a very good mood, Jared," Jensen said, and the words, the tone...it was all Jensen being Jared's dom and so very much what Jared didn't want.

"Shitty day, dude," he told Jensen. He watched, part of him darkly amused, as Jensen tried to relax back into something approximating a slouch.

"Uh, okay," Jensen said awkwardly and Jared knew he was trying to get out of his lawyer space and to tone down his dominant nature.

"We had this open house about three weeks back," Jared explained. "You know, for people who are thinking that they might want to move in one day, have them get a feel for the place."

Jensen nodded encouragingly, getting a little of his lawyer-attentive-to-his-client attitude on. It was much less intimidating than his general lawyer mode, and he also did his best to tone down his dom vibes when he was dealing with clients. Jared didn't mind being treated like a client just at the moment; it fit his bad mood much better than being treated like a sub would've.

"We have them in the evening, canapes, tours, presentations and mingling, that kind of thing," Jared explained. "All the department heads are there, usually with their partners: sealed, promised or pledged. Everyone gets really dressed up."

Jensen nodded again. Jared figured it was the kind of soiree Jensen had plenty of experience with.

"Anyway, it was that kind of shindig," Jared said. "I was running my ass off between meeting prospective residents and making sure the kitchen was running smoothly. Everything went fine; a few doms pinched me and said what they probably thought were complimentary things about how I was sweating from the kitchen and it was a good look for me, as was my mussed hair."

Jensen looked annoyed, but Jared shrugged it off. "That's just how it goes for single subs," he said. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Okay, so three weeks ago you had a work function and were treated like Sub Liberation was, at best, an inconvenient fad," Jensen gave his lawyer's summary.

"Pretty much," Jared said. "Nothing I'm not used to," he added truthfully. Jensen punched a pillow.

"Sorry," he said. "It's just that whenever I hear these stories, hear about the stuff subs have to just let slide, it makes me kinda mad."

"I can't afford to be in a permanent state of mad," Jared said.

"Okay, so if the reception wasn't that big of a problem then, what's changed?"

"A few days after, one of the prospective residents posted a really long account of the evening on Facebook, which you know I avoid like boll weevils in my personal life, but I have to monitor professionally, explaining in excruciating detail why Atlanta Pines was not the right place for her. The room decor isn't updated enough. The single rooms don't have double sinks. The woodland mushroom tartlets had onions in them."

"Wait, what? She was offended by the onions in your woodland tartlets?"

"Yep."

"But...your woodland tartlets are awesome."

"She saw the sign that read 'Woodland Mushroom Tartlets' and thought they would have mushrooms and only mushrooms in them. Not that she was allergic or had a health problem, just that onions in her mushroom tartlets offended her on a deep emotional level, and she felt the need to express this in great detail."

"Wow."

"So Ms. Griffin posted a quick 'Sorry you didn't enjoy the reception and that we didn't live up to your expectations' response."

"Okay, so done deal."

"You'd think so. The prospective resident posted a lengthy response saying she didn't mean to cause offense by posting about the food and the cooks and, I don't know, her brother was once maimed by a shallot or something so that was where she was coming from and furthermore it really wasn't my fault because Atlanta Pines should never have left a sub in charge of their kitchens."

"God," Jensen said.

"So I made the mistake of posting a response, including several mushroom tartlet recipes that didn't include onions and I also pointed out that many residential communities have subs in charge of their kitchens, largely without problems." Jared paused. "That was before Dave," he added darkly.

"Forget Dave, Dave could've happened just as easily to a dom, although probably with less sass-back. But let me guess...she saw this as an invitation to a dialogue?"

"I should've known I was running that risk," Jared said.

"And today...."

"Three paragraph response post that was back to the unpleasant tone of the first one. She said she didn't say that I'm a bad cook, it's just that she expected a mushroom tartlet and got a mushroom tartlet with a few onions instead, her trust was deeply violated. And on and on."

"No wonder you're in a bad mood," Jensen said sympathetically.

"I keep going over it in my head," Jared said. "I know I shouldn't, but I keep thinking if only I'd let it lie, or if I'd said something different or handled it some other way.... Or maybe she wouldn't have been that way toward a dom. Or a dom would've handled it better, or...." Jared broke off. It wasn't worth getting this upset over but he couldn't stop himself.

"May I come over?" Jensen asked. And Jared had to think about it, hated that he had to think about it.

Finally he nodded. Jensen moved over to Jared's couch, sitting near him but not touching him.

"She really struck a nerve," Jensen said.

"I let her do it," Jared said fairly

"Please don't do that," Jensen said quietly. "Please don't...invalidate your own emotions."

Jared nodded, but he thought Jensen was wrong. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't invalidating himself; he was evaluating his own vulnerability to outside pressures.

"I'm guessing this brought up a lot for you," Jensen said cautiously. "It reminded you of...well, why you left social media, didn't it?"

Jared nodded again.

"That dom who gave me a grocery list of reasons I was a bad sub but what he really meant, but didn't write, was that I shouldn't have dared to criticize a dom's behavior," Jared said, sniffing a little and reaching for Jensen's hand. Jensen took it.

"I would've understood better," Jared continued, "if that other dom had said the whole thing was my fault because I picked a bad partner for the rope workshop. That I didn't vet him properly. But, no, it wasn't that I got a dud, it was that I was too stupid to appreciate a good dom practicing good topping when it happened to me. Too stupid to be able to get myself out of that tie."

"Oh, god, ba-- Jared." Jensen simply held Jared's hand although he clearly wanted to do more. "That rope workshop top...he was in the wrong. He put you in that situation, he didn't check to make sure you had the resources to get out if you needed to, he went off and didn't come back. And the guy who defended him by making it your fault, he was even more in the wrong."

"I know, I know," Jared said. "And it was years ago, but this brought it back. And I couldn't let it go. Can't." He laughed shortly. "So I took my bad history to this Facebook encounter, just the same as the mushroom tartlet lady brought her bad history to her post."

"Oh, Jared," Jensen sighed and Jared turned to him for a hug. Jensen held him for a long time before venturing any thoughts of his own.

"And then you came into my condo and I started trying to dom you without even checking to see if you'd be receptive," Jensen said. "Hell, I didn't even look at you. I'm really sorry I took you for granted like that."

"Yeah, I kinda wish you hadn't done that," Jared said, squeezing Jensen's hand to try to take the sting out of his words. He didn't want Jensen to feel too bad, but Jensen had kind of screwed up.

"You're right, it was uncalled for and presumptuous," Jensen said. "I had this fixed idea of how our evening was gonna go and I was really focused on that and I just assumed you'd be down for whatever I wanted. Exactly the kind of thing we said we weren't gonna do."

"Pretty much," Jared agreed. There were going to be a lot of stumbling blocks along the way as they tried to figure out how to be the way they wanted to be: friends and partners in life, dom and sub during sex.

"I'm sorry this came up when you were having such a bad day already," Jensen said. "But I actually have a plan that...well, it won't necessarily make things completely better for you, but maybe it'll help. Or maybe you just want to go back to your place and be alone for awhile?"

Jared wasn't sure. "Depends on what your plan is," he said cautiously.

"Okay, now I have to confess that I noticed something when I was looking for coffee filters on Sunday," Jensen said. "I wasn't snooping; I just saw something that caught my eye."

"Oh?" Jared asked.

Jensen disentangled himself from Jared and jumped up, heading over to his kitchen space. 

"I was at the store yesterday and I bought salad greens and all kinds of good stuff, but I also got this!" Jensen announced triumphantly, pulling a box out of a cabinet and waving it around triumphantly.

"Velveeta shells and cheez?" Jared asked, laughing incredulously.

"I saw it in your very own kitchen cabinet with my very own eyes," Jensen pointed out, "lurking behind the coffee filters. Don't pretend like it's not your fondest culinary wish right now."

Jared couldn't lie. "You said you have salad greens?"

"There will be salad and there will be...this. Dusted with freshly ground black pepper atop if that is Monsieur's preference," Jensen shook the box again. "And there will be _Ghostbusters_ or any other damn movie you want and you will be reminded that there is good in the world."

"Can we go out to Palo Alto and burn Facebook headquarters to the ground and salt the earth so nothing can ever grow there again?" Jared asked hopefully.

"Menlo Park," Jensen corrected absently, examining the cooking directions on the package. "And as much as wanton violence to private property might seem like fun, there's this thing called the cloud, so kinda pointless. And I suppose I should object on legal grounds, too. Also...you don't blame the knife when someone cuts themselves slicing bread."

"True," Jared said.

"And remember how the First Sub decided to make anti-cyber bullying her cause?"

"Yeah?" 

"Well, her office just issued a statement saying that if someone hits you, you hit them back ten times harder. So you know she's got your back."

Jared groaned. "That's...one approach to the problem. And I think I kind of tend to embrace that approach, as much as I hate myself for doing it."

"Which is why you left social media as much as you could, right?"

"Yeah. It...does not bring out the best in me."

"Not in a lot of people, but they don't have the sense to bail."

"Can we stop talking about this now?" Jared asked hopefully.

"Sure. Maybe later you'll let me give you a non-sexy massage? Will that help?"

"Can't hurt." Jared thought for a moment. "What about you? You obviously had a very different plan in mind when I walked in the door."

"Yeah," Jensen sighed wistfully. "It was a pretty damn good plan, too, but nothing that can't wait for another day. You do not have the appearance of someone who wants sex tonight."

"But...." Jared protested. He had a duty to his dom, after all, or so he'd been told most of his life.

"Nope," Jensen said cheerfully. "I'm gonna dom you by making you eat dinner and watch a stupid comedy and get a massage and not put out."

And, Jared realized, that was exactly the level of Jensen's domination he wanted for the night.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote Jensen refers to was, in our world, from a statement issued by Melania Trump's communications director to CNN, June 29, 2017 : 
> 
> "As the first lady has stated publicly, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back ten times harder."
> 
> I understand the sentiment all too well.


End file.
